This invention relates to the communication of user data to an Automatic Call Distributor (ACD) Agent.
An Automatic Call Distributor (ACD), is an arrangement for connecting a caller to one of a plurality of Agents served by that ACD. Many highly flexible arrangements for Automatic Call Distributors exist in the prior art. One highly flexible scheme is described in Gechter et al: U.S. Pat. No. 5,036,535, which discloses arrangements for routing an incoming call to the most appropriate Agent that is available. The selection of that Agent is carried out by an overall control system which is aware of the current status of all Agents, and of a user profile of callers. This system is also arranged as are many other ACDs, to accept input from callers, usually in the form of Dual-Tone Multi-Frequency (DTMF) signals, keyed in response to announcement queries from the ACD. A problem of the prior art is, that this type of control of the ACD gives very little opportunity for callers to interact with the ACD, and to select an optimum queue path for finding an appropriate Agent to serve their call, since, in the prior art, the selection process is handled almost entirely by the control of the ACD in a single tree-type selection process. Further, in the prior art, ACDs are viewed as stand-alone systems, not as part of an ACD network. Further, communication of data to an ACD Agent is inefficient and time-consuming.
The above problems are substantially alleviated and an advance is made over the teachings of the prior art in accordance with this invention, wherein an ACD is supplied with a User Controller such as a Personal Computer (PC), which interacts with a caller to provide information to the caller and to receive call direction information from the caller, and interacts with the Call Controller means of the ACD for establishing connections between the caller and a selected Agent, or between the caller and another ACD of an ACD network for completion by that other ACD. Advantageously, this allows the caller to control the selection of an appropriate Agent.
In accordance with Applicants"" invention, a data transfer dialogue can take place between the caller and the PC User Controller to request information from the caller that will be useful to an Agent when that Agent is connected to the call. Advantageously, such an arrangement saves time for the caller and the Agent. In accordance with one feature of Applicants"" invention, the entries in a queue of the ACD specify not only the caller""s identification, but restrictions as to which Agent or sub-group of Agents, associated in an ACD Network by prior arrangement, that caller can be connected to. Advantageously, this arrangement allows a single queue to serve many different purposes.
In accordance with one feature of Applicants"" invention, the caller can leave a recorded message. When an Agent saves that caller""s queue entry, the Agent listens to the recorded message, and either calls the caller back, or disposes of the caller""s request without further communication with the caller. Advantageously, the caller can disconnect without losing a place in the queue.